Eduspeak has always been a bit on the snooty order. Only those in the know, knew. If you didn’t have the secret handshake or the correct pucker factor, you weren’t going to know. For very busy parents, and those outside the system, staying plugged in to current trends can be a bit of a challenge.

There is also an age factor involved in all the acronyms. If you are solidly in the Boomer Generation, it’s probable that you are less likely to know what any those terms means. Anyone below that Boomer mark probably does, and for those who are way below it the probability goes way up.

All of those terms have to do with schools, and they are all related. Not only that, but the pace of change will mean that some of them won’t be around in their present form for long. Technology is a rapidly moving issue.

1:1 means one device for one child in a school district. Tablets, iPads, ThinkPads, laptops, and so on, are the devices. X:1 refers to a number of different devices for each child, not all of which are supplied by the district. That ties into BYOD, Bring Your Own Device, which results in X:1.

That relates directly to Bandwidth, which is the electronic pipeline that the internet flows through to your home, school, or business. More devices require more bandwidth. Distance learning is related to all of it. The traditional classroom isn’t the choice for everyone, and in the traditional classroom, learning isn’t restricted to the physical classroom. The lesson could just as easily be from somewhere else, or where ever you are becomes the classroom, which is distance learning.

MOOC’s are related to all of it too. Massive Open Online Courses is what that stands for. In order to either have one, or participate in one, you need bandwidth, a device, and the ability to connect from where ever you are. All of this is part of the ever changing landscape of education. How is Common Core involved?

There is a heavy technology component of Common Core, and all of it revolves around the various iterations of local area and wide area networks. None of these, by themselves, drives the education machine. All of them, together, drive it.

What isn’t covered in this particular piece is how all of this works, and what it takes, and will take, to make it work. That’s a whole different subject, one that is absolutely welded to the entire ball of wax. Stay tuned, and as always, assume nothing, verify everything.